With eight months to go before the May 2004 polls, it was reported that less than two percent of the country’s projected 38.4 million voters have been electronically registered.
The billion-peso modernization for the 2004 national elections may be headed for disaster, with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) reporting that only 473,035 have validated their voters’ registration electronically, while only 264,931 new voters have registered, bringing the total number of electronically registered voters to 739,976.
The Comelec computations peg the country’s voting population at 42,856,190 and it expected at least 38,493,160 to register or validate their existing voter’s records under the new electronic system. — Jose Aravilla